Flesh and Bone Outtakes
by BaronessMeggie
Summary: More from the adventures of Super!Peeta
1. Outtake -- Peeta

**This cut scene takes place during the events of ch.12. **

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When I dash into the house, the first person to greet me is actually Sae. She's carefully pulling out a roasting pan full of mini-cheesecakes baked in ramekins that I know are a particular favorite of some of the folks in town who don't like to fuss with pies, even during the holidays. She smiles at me and opens her arms to me as soon as she sets the piping hot pan down, and I enter them gratefully. It took a while for Ms. Sae to warm up to me—for the first couple of years of my life here, she watched me and Delly like hawks, I'm sure because she thought that any moment I was libel to pick Delly up and snap her in half. But when it became apparent that I was still having serious trouble with my grammar, even after learning to speaks English through my dad's gentle guidance, she was the one who sat down with me at the kitchen table and drilled proper verb and noun usage into my head. She's also the reason why I'm still, to this very day, so reluctant to swear. Ms. Sae _hates _swearing.

"You need a haircut, sweetheart," she says, tugging lightly on one of the curls above my ears.

"Can we maybe _not _make it clear that you're the one who cuts my hair still after all these years when my girlfriend is here with me?" I say, blushing slightly. She wipes her hands on her apron and sighs heavily.

"Yes…your father mentioned her. You really ought to have let him know, you know," she says.

"I know, I know. I just…where is Dad, anyway?" I ask, looking into the living room quickly and not seeing him there, either.

"He helped Delly take your suitcases upstairs. I suspect he snuck into his room to look out his window and make sure you're giving the girl the proper tour," she says before pouring another batch of the cheesecake mixture into a new set of ramekins.

As if on cue, Delly and Dad descend the stairs, whispering quickly to one another as if they don't remember how sharp my hearing is. They startle when I say obtusely, "Yes, it's the same Katniss from the river that night. Can we maybe not mention that around her, please?"

Delly hangs her head, and Dad scratches the back of his. "She seems…nice, Peet," Dad says slowly.

"Sit down, the both of you, will you? I need to tell you something and I don't want you to make a big thing of it," I say, gesturing towards the small table in the breakfast nook. I toss an apple back and forth in my hands for something to do while I sort out the thoughts in my head.

"You could have mentioned you've been dating her in any of those texts you've sent the last couple of weeks, you know," Delly says, her voice heavy with guilt already. I roll my eyes.

"And missed getting the lecture from you in person, Dell? Why would I do that?" I groan.

"You don't need to be snippy with her, Peet. But why _didn't _you tell us? Any of us?" Dad says sternly.

"Oh, cripes, Ezekiel, he isn't 10 years old anymore," Sae says with a shake of her head. "He's entitled to keep things to himself if he chooses to."

I scan through the front of the house into the field beyond. I see Katniss move from the stable to the pig pen, where she wiggles her hand playfully to the piglet that stumbles towards her. I probably shouldn't tell her what ultimately ends up happening to the pigs we keep, I suppose: she might be too tender hearted to know why our bacon is so good.

The words tumble past my lips before I can stop them. "Listen—Katniss knows."

I hear three collective breaths sucked in sharply through three sets of teeth.

"Ex_cuse_ me?" Delly hisses.

"Katniss knows, Dell," I say, turning towards my best friend in time to see her eyes go wide. "She knows everything about me."

"Oh, Peeta," Sae says slowly.

"Why the fuck would you tell her?!" Delly sneers.

"Language, Delilah!" Sae snaps.

"No, Nana, this is serious. Peeta, what the hell?" she says, standing up and rounding on me. Even at nearly a foot shorter than me, she's still relatively intimidating.

"You told me not a month ago that she and I weren't 14 years old anymore! What the hell with _you_, Delly?" I say, quirking my head to the side.

"Yeah, when you were pining over her from afar, not when you're blabbing the biggest secret you could possibly blab ever in your life!" she says, poking my chest hard.

"How…how did this come about, Peeta?" my dad says drily, clearly trying to diffuse the situation a little. He's rubbing his temple roughly though, the way he always does when he's beginning to get nervous.

I stare Delly down until she sits back down at the table and launch into the entire explanation; Katniss's meteor rock necklace, how I went to her apartment to explain why I was being so cold, hearing her cries as her muggers attempted to put a bullet in her spine and take disgusting advantage of her. I leave out the extended, passionate sex against my apartment window, though—Dad wouldn't be able to stomach that knowledge, I'm sure. When I finish up by explaining that we've been dating ever since, their facial expressions are the exact copies of their original reactions. Sae is impassive. Dad is shocked. Delly is pissed.

"She could blow everything," Delly says under her breath, tears glinting in her eyes. "She could blab and get you taken away from us. God knows what the government spooks would do if they knew—"

"She wouldn't do that, Delly. She knows how important this is. And I trust her, okay? If I trust her, you trust her, isn't that the deal?" I say imploringly. It was an agreement we'd come to as children, sealed with a pinkie-swear: if I ever outed-myself to anyone, it was because I trusted them implicitly. And since I'm the harder one to put any trust in people to begin with, Delly agreed to divert to my expertise in the situation and go along with it. She looks positively petulant when I remind her of this, and swipes at her eyes angrily.

"Peeta…you promised you'd be so careful," Dad says sadly. I feel about six-years old the way he looks at me when he says it, and my head hangs involuntarily.

"I couldn't let those guys hurt her, Dad, Mockingjay suit or no. I'd never have forgiven myself. She needed help and I was there. But she saw the bullets and…well, how else did you want me to explain that?" I say, my voice crackling.

"You did a very brave thing, sweetheart," Sae says, placing her hand on my shoulder. "We're all just—you know how much we all love you."

She shoots my father a quick look and Delly an even longer one. I swear I see both of their resolves break down under the intense gaze of Sae's amber colored irises.

"It took a lot for her to be willing to come out here. But she wanted to do it—for _me. _So please: I need you to be nice to her. Especially you, Dell. I need you to trust that I knew what I was doing when I told her the truth and that she isn't going to sell me out. She's not like that. She's…she's a better person than that. So just…_please_, okay?" I beg them all quietly.

It's a second before Dad clears his throat and gets to his feet. He opens his arms and I wrap mine around him gratefully. Having him on my side is everything. I glance over his shoulder at Delly, who's staring at her boots. When she looks up at me, her eyes are still glossy.

"God, I sort of hate how much we used to pinkie-swear," she says with a huff, but folds herself against my chest anyway. I smile into her hair.

"Yeah, well—those are binding, you know," I remind her.

"Always," she agrees.

I hear Katniss's footsteps before I spin around and scan through the front of the house again to see her tentatively approaching the front porch. She shuffles her feet for a moment before stepping up the first creaky stair and I look at my family once again.

"Please?" I ask again.

All three nod solemnly, and I know when the screen door squeaks as she enters the house, they'll welcome her with open arms. I know because they know how hard it is for me to trust anyone but the three of them with something so crucial.

A few moments later, though, when my father puts his arm around Katniss's shoulder and leads her into the living room to show her the truly embarrassing pictures of me as a child, I swear I feel a collective weight lifted from the three of their shoulders. I feel my own shoulders relax a little when Delly strikes up an easy-enough conversation with Katniss a minute later, and then more when Sae puts her to work slicing a watermelon into wedges. The look I catch on my father's face confirms it: four people guarding one secret is stressful. A fifth doesn't exactly ease the burden entirely—but it seems to do _something_.

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**A/N - Meggie and I wanted to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for getting _Flesh and Bone _to 200 reviews this week. That number is huge to us, and we are so, so grateful you are enjoying this story so much. It means the world to us.**

**We are currently slowly-but-surely back at work on ch.14 and beyond, but we are attempting to each get a couple of chapters under our belts before we resume our regular posting schedule. Thank you for your continued patience - we're so excited for you all to see what we have planned next for Super!Everlark!**


	2. Outtake -- Ezekiel

_**Author's Note (Aug. 28):**_This outtake was originally posted as chapter fifteen. In an attempt to keep all the body chapters together, we reorganized them when chapter seventeen was updated. That being said, if you clicked on the link hoping to go to the updated chapter, you want to select "Chapter Seventeen - Peeta" from the drop down menu. I'm so sorry for the confusion!

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_**Morgantown, West Virginia - 1989**_

Ezekiel hears Malia's braying from his bedroom window. Despite the chilly fall breeze, he can't help but sleep with the window open, just like Armarna always did. He used to give her any amount of hell for it, but in the end, he could never say no to his 'Marna. Now his bedroom feels stuffy without it open at least a crack.

He looks over and sees the tiny towhead still completely out for the count on the pillow next to him. In the week the boy has been with him, he's gifted the generous supply of sewing equipment and paraphernalia that Armarna left behind to the Cartwright's, and spent more money than he ever imagined he would transforming the spare room from his wife's crafting office into a functional bedroom. He left the walls the original pale blue she'd painted them years ago when they first started trying for a baby, even though he's not sure what color the little boy might like instead since the boy still won't—or can't—talk. A small bed and chest of drawers had arrived from Capitol just two days before, and the child had seemed delighted by them. Right up until it was time to go to sleep.

"Are the pillows too puffy?" Ezekiel had asked the boy, who'd shaken his head quickly. Sae had taken a pair of scissors to the child's long curls, but they still fell in waves over his forehead when he moved his head.

"Are the sheets scratchy? Armarna did all the washing, I never know when to add in the fabric softener," he'd pressed, but again the boy had shaken his head insistently.

He'd sighed heavily and run his hand along the child's shoulders. As if on cue, the boy had crawled into his lap and clung tightly to his chest. Ezekiel's arms had wrapped around him, and he could smell the sweet scent of childhood rising up from the boy's tiny body—sugar, grass, dirt. In the end, the boy was still just a child, no matter how extraordinary the things he was capable of doing.

"You're terribly lonely, aren't you? Without your real parents," Ezekiel had whispered to boy. He wanted this child to be his own desperately. The sense of kinship with this tiny creature had only grown stronger in the days since he'd found him in the stables. But he wondered if there wasn't some way to send the child back where he'd come from, make sure that he was with his own kind, whatever or whomever they might be. He'd hauled the twisted hunk of metal in from the woods with the horses and a makeshift buggy and hidden it in one of the barns. But perhaps it was wrong of him to do so. Perhaps he should have placed the boy back inside and advised him to make the thing fly. Surely a child so small couldn't actually captain a vessel such as that, but maybe it had some auto-pilot feature. It would probably be so much better, so much safer, for this boy to just go home.

But then little Delly had gone and given him a name. _Peeta_. _Peeta_ Mellark, or so the papers will say when he and Moritz Cartwright work out the fine details, adoptive son of Ezekiel Mellark. The boy already turned his little head whenever the name spilled off of Delly's lips. He seemed to like it just fine, accepted it without question. It was as though it had been his name all along. And yet Ezekiel still finds himself unable to say it himself.

"If I knew how to send you back to them, I would, son. Maybe Sae's right. I might be no good at this parenting thing. So, if you know how to go back from where you came from, I won't be upset if you want to go," Ezekiel said, looking into the child's bright, shining blue eyes.

The child seemed to contemplate this a moment. Then he'd poked Ezekiel firmly in the chest.

"Ow," Ezekiel had grunted. "You don't know your own strength sometimes."

The boy shrugged. Then poked him in the chest again, much softer, in the space right over his heart. His eyes seemed to grow wider as he stared up at the man, as if challenging him to misunderstand his meaning.

It had washed over Ezekiel like a tidal wave. The boy wasn't displeased with the softness of the sheets or the relative comfort of the bed. Even with the light filtering in from the hallway to ease the boy's still intense residual fear of the dark, the boy just didn't want to be alone. He wanted to be near him.

If Ezekiel had to pinpoint a moment with little Peeta that truly cemented his paternal feelings for the child, that was most definitely it. And so he's tucked the boy into Armarna's side of the bed ever since, despite knowing it'd be to the boy's benefit to gain some independence sooner rather than later. For now, though, he can't see the harm in it.

So, that night, when Malia begins to bray and whine loudly enough to carry into his bedroom, he eases himself out of bed very, very slowly so as not to disturb the child's innocent slumber. He keeps a pair of boots near the front door, so he closes the bedroom door tightly behind him to keep the child secure and tiptoes down the stairs. He shrugs on a jacket and boots before grabbing a flashlight to illuminate his path out to the stable.

He knows that the time for Malia's colt to be born has come when he sees her lying on her side in the straw padding of her paddock. She lifts her head at his approach and neighs pathetically. He shakes his head and sighs deeply; he wishes he'd done this at least once unassisted by his wife, just so that he wouldn't feel like he was going into it quite so blind. All the same, he goes into the stable storage space to retrieve the cover-alls that he'll wear over his pajamas and let his instincts guide him; he's been raising horses for nearly a decade, surely this is something he can figure out without having to call Dr. Jessup, the large animal vet in town, at 2:45 in the morning.

He's kneeling by her to get a feel for how her birthing is progressing when he hears a sharp intake of breath from behind him. Sure enough, he turns around and sees a pair of sapphire blue eyes staring at him through a mop of unruly curls perched just on the divider gate. He sighs, wondering how on Earth he'll be able to get his—this—no, _his_ child to sleep in his own bed one day if he can't be out of it for more than ten minutes before the boy wakes to find where he's gone.

"This is a messy business, son," Ezekiel says patiently. "And Malia'll be awfully testy. Why don't you go back to sleep?"

The boy shakes his head and climbs over the stall door, landing gracefully as he jumps over it and pads in his bare feet to Malia's snout. He's about to reach out and pull the boy back from getting a nip or head butt when something sort of miraculous happens: Malia's near incessant whining ceases, and she pushes her snout into his tiny stomach as he strokes her mane.

"How…how are you doing that?" Ezekiel asks, even though he knows the child won't answer. The little one continues to stroke his small fingers through the matted clumps of horse hair and then begins to babble softly. He strains his ears to listen, thinking maybe if he can understand this little one's Mother-tongue, perhaps he can imitate it himself. It's completely fruitless, of course, for just as soon as the child begins speaking, he quiets and begins to hum instead.

Armarna had had a beautiful singing voice. Listening to the easy melody come from the throat of this child would make her happy, Ezekiel's sure of it. And it seems to be completely enchanting Malia, who's holding so still you'd never imagine his hand is shoved so far up her—well. Birthing horses _is _a messy business.

"Son, if she starts getting antsy, will you please promise me you'll climb up on the side and just watch me instead? She's a big beast, much bigger than you; I can't stomach the idea of you getting hurt," Ezekiel asks the child. His blonde curls bounce when he nods, and his hands continue their rhythmic stroking of her mane and snout.

It is like this that an hour later, the horse that later becomes known as TJ enters the world. Ezekiel scoops the boy up as soon as Malia gets to her feet and begins to investigate and clean the colt, and sits him on the side as the mother and babe bond. The child's eyes widen in amazement as the newborn horse slowly pulls himself up on his spindly legs and tests them out. A moment later, he lifts up his front hooves and sort of gallops in place, and his mother brays at him gently. He makes his way to her teat and begins to suckle for his first meal, making the boy giggle at the funny sight.

"This is how most Earth creatures feed," Ezekiel explains. The boy looks pensive before he nods, accepting this information and adding it into his lexicon of things he now "knows" about the world he lives in. Ezekiel knows it's probably pressing his luck, but he asks the question anyway. "Do you remember your mother?"

The boy seems confused by the word. Ezekiel reiterates that a "mother" is grown up like he, but a female like Delly or Sae. At this, the boy shakes his head and once again points his tiny hand to the sky.

"Right. Of course," Ezekiel says with a small nod.

The boy is entranced by Malia and her baby for a long while, but eventually even his fascination with the horses runs out and his head lolls sleepily against Ezekiel's shoulder. He does once final check to ensure that Malia has plenty of water and hay to last while he gets cleaned up and caffeinated before he comes back to muck out the stall. He carries the child back to the main house and tucks him into bed, sitting with him for several long minutes to ensure he's really asleep before he steps under the piping-hot spray of the shower to wash off the gunk of horse delivery.

The child sleeps almost the entire day away, but when he awakens and sneaks out to the stable without Sae, who'd agreed to keep an ear out for him while Ezekiel worked, being any the wiser, it doesn't surprise the man in the least to find him perched on the tall gate of the horse stall, watching the tiny colt with all the fascination and adoration in the world.

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Sae suggests he read to Peeta to coax him to sleep in his own bed a few weeks after the colt is born. She brings a stack of children's books that she says Thatch and Delly won't miss to see if that helps. The child doesn't take well to the idea at first, and Ezekiel allows him to spend several nights once again occupying Armarna's pillow before growing firm with him. Slowly, the boy begins to at least fall asleep in his own room, but the man still often stirs in the middle of the night to find the child creeping into his room, undoing all the hard work of finally getting him to sleep in his own bed.

They run through some of the lighter books quickly before Ezekiel decides on a full novel that he thinks the boy might enjoy, considering its content.

"_As she approached her chair, the carton wobbled, and there was a scratching noise,_" Ezekiel reads as the boy fights the growing heaviness of his own eyelids. _"Fern looked at her father. Then she lifted the lid of the carton. There, inside, looking up at her, was the newborn pig. It was a white one. The morning light shone through its ears, turning them pink._

_"He's yours," said Mr. Arable. "Saved from an untimely death. And may the good Lord forgive me for this foolishness."_

_Fern couldn't take her eyes off the tiny pig. "Oh," she whispered. "Oh, look at him! He's absolutely perfect." She closed the carton carefully. First she kissed her father, then she kissed her mother._"

Suddenly, as if every ounce of exhaustion had been leeched out of his body all at once, the child sits up and looks inquisitively at Ezekiel. He puts the book aside and points outside to the grounds beyond.

"It'd be a bit like if you wanted to care for that colt we birthed the other day," he explains to the child, even though he's not entirely sure of his own logic. "But you don't have to worry about him, because Malia, his mother, is taking good care of him."

The boy seems to accept this. Then he pokes the man in the chest, much lighter than he sometimes does. Then he points at himself. Ezekiel understands immediately.

"Yes. Just like I intend to care for you. I may not be your father, son, not by blood or any ounce of logic that exists in the world. But I'll care for you all the same," the man says, his voice heavy with emotion.

He continues to read the child the beginning of the adventure of Fern Arable and Wilbur the pig when he sees the child's eyes flutter closed and his breathing even out. He smoothes the hair behind the child's ears and snaps out the light, allowing the night light and the glow-in-the-dark stars he'd put up for the child several nights prior to illuminate the room before collapsing into his own bed down the hall.

Sure enough, a tiny weight shifts in bed next to him hours later, and a soft poke comes to his chest. The boy's bright blue eyes seem to reflect the moonlight spilling in from Ezekiel's bedroom window. "Still can't sleep much on your own, huh?" the man asks the boy sleepily.

The boy's mouth opens and closes a few times, and Ezekiel stirs a bit more. The child is still ostensibly mute, save for giggles or gurgles or whines that emanate freely from his throat whenever he's feeling or experiencing something new or interesting. But never before has he moved his lips quite like this; it almost looks like he's trying to form words.

"Fff…" a tiny, strange sound comes from between the boy's teeth, and sounds more like a confused sound than an actual word. "Fffaa…"

Ezekiel snaps on the light next to his bed and pulls the boy into his lap. The boy pokes quickly at his chest and tries again. "Fff-fffaa…"

"What are you trying to say, son?" Ezekiel whispers to him. "Far? Fall? Fath—"

He stops himself short, but the boy nods quickly and pokes him in the chest again.

"Father?" Ezekiel squeaks.

"Fffaa…" the boy tries, but huffs and just pokes his chest again insistently. Ezekiel bites the inside of his cheek to keep his emotions in check, and nods his head.

"If you'd like…the word 'Dad' might be easier for you," Ezekiel says gently.

The child considers this for a minute before his smile goes immediately from frustrated to exuberant.

"Daaad," the little one says without any more coaxing.

Ezekiel nods his head quickly as tears roll down his cheeks. "Peeta," he says, finally using the sweet child's adoptive name in such a way that the boy will recognize it as their mutual acknowledgment of the importance of one another. The boy beams at him happily and clings to his chest. When he falls back to sleep a short while later, Ezekiel carries him down the hall and tucks him back into his own bed, kissing his temple and gently ruffling his hair.

The child doesn't pad back down the hallway again at night. He sleeps soundly in his own small bed from then on.

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**A/N from Kika: This outtake would not have been possible without the cheerleading of misshoneywell and haka_nai, Court81981's suggestion of utilizing some of the wonderful words of "Charlotte's Web" to help Peeta find his, my co-author Meggie's love and influence, and our beta sohypothetically's advice and freaky fast turn-around on edits. Thank you ALL; I just really love you, okay? :)**

**A/N from Meggie: So one week turned into four and I feel awful about that. However, I am THRILLED to announce that we will be resuming regular chapter postings next Wednesday (8/7)! Due to several factors (mostly the fact that we're both really wordy and our chapters keep pushing 10k each) we will only be posting one chapter a week on Wednesdays from here on out. Hopefully this will give you all the chance to catch up and might even mean that a few new people wander into the world of Super!Peeta. Your continued support here, on Ao3, and on Tumblr means the world to us. Feel free to drop by Tumblr and say hello. You might even get a few FaB surprises while you're there (especially on Sunday, but you didn't hear that from me...)! We love you all and we're SO happy to start posting regularly again. **


	3. Greed (Peeta)

**A/N: **Originally published for the Prompts in Panem week long Everlark challenge on Tumblr (Round 4: Seven Deadly Sins; Day 2: Greed), this outtake takes place during Peeta's senior year of high school.

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**_Morgantown, West Virginia—2003_**

The pitchfork slides into the soiled hay easily, but my actions are too quick and not nearly methodical enough to properly scoop the stuff up. I fling what little I can manage into the large black trash bag before gnashing my teeth together in frustration and trying again. From his temporary pen, TJ whinnies at me pathetically, like he knows something isn't right in my head. Horses really are awfully smart.

Despite the slight limp from her back surgery, Delly is still able to sneak up on me. "Man, what's got you all worked up?" she says as she folds her arms over the stall gate and rests her chin on top of them.

"Nothing," I say with a grunt, changing my grip on the wooden handle. That's all it takes for me to snap the thing clean in half. "Damn it."

Delly whistles. She'd come over to study for our Physics pre-final, I'm sure, but I need to have these chores done before any of that.

"Okay, well, your dad just gave me the whole 'Peeta really needs his best friend right now' speech as soon as I pulled up…so talk," she says simply.

I groan and shake my head. I knew Dad didn't believe me when I came home and told him school was fine today. I toss the broken tool aside and amble over to the gate and sigh before I launch into it. "Present company excluded, of course…but I kinda wish my species were a-sexual or something."

Delly's nostrils flare and her eyes go wide. "Oh my God…this is a sexual frustration thing?"

I roll my eyes. "Dell, the closest I've ever gotten to even second base is tucking a blanket around you the other night when you fell asleep on the couch watching that Heath Ledger/Shakespeare movie you never stop quoting."

She snorts, but sobers quickly when she sees I'm still really not in the mood. "Hey, that's a great movie."

I roll my eyes yet again. "Right, so that's not really the point. Why are you all of a sudden freaked out about doing it? You're still a dude, Peet. I don't think being from another planet excludes you from the reality of hormones."

"So then what's the damn point of even being from another planet if I have to deal with all the crap of being the freak that I am, and all the stupid high school crap on top if that? Those movies you like watching are bullshit. High school sucks and I just want to graduate and get the hell out of this town already," I snap.

She's used to my tirades, fortunately. She takes the brunt of them being my only real friend. As such, she knows how to handle them. "What's this really about, Peet? I'm feeling a little dense today, you're gonna need to spell it out."

"You're gonna hate the answer," I retort.

"If it's gonna spare another of Ezekiel's shovels, I'm all about it."

I take off my work gloves and rub my temples with the heels of my hands. I can't look at her when I say it. "I figured I'd, you know…bite the bullet and ask Lana to…you know, the prom."

Delly has made it abundantly clear that she hates Lana with a fiery passion. It doesn't surprise me when her eyebrows rise practically up to her hairline and she clears her throat. "Lana, huh?"

"Told you you'd hate it. Go on ahead, I know you're dying to say it," I tell her, wishing I could stop the flush that's creeping up my neck.

"No, Peet…I just…look, I'm sorry. Tell me what she said?" she replies with a sad sigh.

"Didn't get the chance to even ask. Cato Gloss got to her first."

"Cato? I thought he was still with Clove?" she says with a twisted look on her face. She shakes her head when she can tell she's missing the point. "I'm still not sure how this makes you want to swear off sex when you're still a virgin."

I gape at her. I thought she already knew. "I like her. I'm…well, I'm kind of surprised just how much I like her."

Her face betrays that this is not actually news at all. I don't know why the hell she made me be so blunt. "Okay so. Is she actually dating Cato or just going to prom with him? Because, you know, you could always ask her to dinner or to the movies or to go kick puppies or something…"

I glare at her, and she holds her hands up defensively. "Sorry, sorry…I'm sure she's very nice when you get to know her."

"What the hell did she do to you that made you hate her so much?" I ask. Lana has always been nice to me, even if she has stuck me pretty firmly in the "friends-only" seat. I mutter something about her clearly not being interested in taking me away from Delly, thinking maybe my best friend didn't hear. Of course, I'm dead wrong.

"Look, I'm sorry. She just rubs me the wrong way. With the rides to and from school you've been giving her and all the 'Oh, Peeta, your dad's blueberry muffins are the best, even if they are super fattening!' and everything…it just feels like she's using you, and I don't want that for you. I didn't want this to happen to you. You deserve better," she says. Her hand wanders over and circles my wrist, squeezing gently and the look she gives me is genuinely one of concern and adoration. I don't deserve Delly Cartwright as a best friend.

I'm still stinging from Lana's revelation and my own feelings of greed and territorialism to accept her comfort. I pull my wrist away and pick up another shovel to resume my chores. "I'll listen better next time."

"Peet, that isn't what I mean…"

"It's fine," I say, dumping a shovel-full into the bag. "I mean, at least I didn't let Lana's parents die. Surely that must mean I'm improving this whole 'talking to girls I have feelings for' thing."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her jump over the stall door and stride over to me. She removes the shovel from my hands and places her hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look down into her eyes.

"You listen to me right now. You are my best friend, and I love you to hell and back, but you have got to stop beating yourself up over that! It was tragic and it messed us both up for a long time, and maybe we'll never really 'get over it', but you need to stop."

She shakes me and I nod quickly, my eyes flitting to the corners of the stalls to get a reprieve from her intense gaze.

"You're gonna find someone, Peet. Someone great. Maybe it's Lana, maybe it's someone else. But whoever she is and wherever she's waiting, she's out there. You just have to be patient."

I shake my head. I want that, I really do. But I know it's not gonna happen the way she says it will.

"Who's ever gonna be okay with what I am, Delly?" I ask her sadly.

"I'm okay with it," she says with a smile. It falls a second later when she realizes what she might have just implied. "Oh, God, I didn't mean…I just meant that I can't be the only one who loves every piece of you. Someday you're going to find a girl who loves you even more than I do."

There's something here, though. It's awkward and it's electric and it's palpable. I lick my lips quickly, knowing how stupid what I'm about to say is gonna sound. "Do you, um…do you suppose that, like, kissing would still be way weird for…well, for us?"

"I, um," she says, her eyes wide even as she takes a step closer to me. "Would it make you feel better?"

My cheeks burn hot and I weasel away to go back to shoveling. "It was dumb, forget I said anything…"

A minute later, she pulls the shovel out of my hands and tosses it aside. Her hands are on the sides of my face, and she stands up on her tippy-toes so she can press her lips flush with my own. They're softer than they were that time when we were kids and tried this just to see what it would feel like. Her tongue darts against the seam of my mouth and I touch mine quickly to the tip of hers. She must have had alfredo sauce for lunch because her mouth tastes a bit like butter and rich cream and garlic. It's not entirely unpleasant—but I still pull away a second later and she doesn't try to stop me.

"So?" she asks, rocking back on her heels and crossing her arms.

"Delly, I love you. But…not like that," I say sheepishly.

She sighs in relief and laughs. "Yeah, that was still totally weird."

The awkward electricity lifts immediately, and I pull my best friend into a hug. "You…you shouldn't be anyone's second choice anyway." I genuinely mean that. My best friend deserves someone as incredible and fierce and spunky as she is. She deserves better than the likes of me, to be sure.

She pulls away after a second and gnaws on her lip. "Look, this will probably be way stupid…but why don't you and me just go to the prom together? It'll be more fun going with my best friend than going with anyone else anyway."

I grin at her. "I thought the guy was supposed to do the asking."

She sticks her tongue out at me. "Peeta Mellark—sexist. Christ, I'll let you pay for everything if that'll help reconstruct your ego."

"Hey, you know my dad. If I didn't pick you up and hold your door and all that chivalrous crap, he'd beat me senseless."

"Well, in that case—I'm going to wear lavender, daises are my favorite flower, and I've always wanted to go to prom in a limo," she says with a wink. She leans up against the door of the stall while I finish mucking out the old hay and scattering the fresh.

"Seriously, Peet," she says after I'm tying off the bag. "Don't sweat Lana, she's not worth it. It's her loss and she'll realize it sooner rather than later."

I stop to wonder for a second if I really want Lana to realize it after all. I like her, I really do. But I can't help but wonder if she's still just a placeholder for the girl I really want.

"Do you think Lana looks like her?" I ask quietly.

"Katniss?" Delly replies, but it's not really a question at all. "Maybe a little bit. I think Katniss was—is—prettier though. Because she doesn't realize it like Lana does."

"Do you…do you think she and her sister are alright?"

"They're alive. She's probably getting ready for her senior prom and freaking out about her dress and hoping whoever's taking her knows her favorite restaurant and isn't gonna cheap out by taking her through the McDonald's Drive-Thru. And the reason she gets to do all of that is because of you. She's alive because of you, Peeta, and you have to remember that."

"I wish I'd told her," I say glumly. "I wish I'd just…I want to go back and tell her. I want it more than anything in the world."

"Life's a funny thing," my friend says with a shrug. "You never know…maybe you'll get your chance someday."

"What, 'cause I catch her falling off a building or something?"

"Who knows? Maybe she'll be the one to save you someday. Or maybe you'll never see her again. There's no way of knowing."

This time I'm the one who hates her answer, even though I know it's the best one she can give me. I may be 18 and probably should be well and truly over my crush on Katniss Everdeen, but she's still all I want.

And only naturally, I'll never, ever have her.


	4. Greed (Katniss)

**A/N: **Originally published for the Prompts in Panem week long Everlark challenge on Tumblr (Round 4: Seven Deadly Sins; Day 2: Greed), this outtake takes place roughly between the events of Chapters 11 and 12. It's lemony so proceed with caution.

* * *

We've only been together a week when Peeta decides that it's high time he takes me on a proper date. I keep telling him that I'm more than happy to stay in with greasy pizza and a Redbox DVD, but he's bound and determined to take me to dinner and an honest-to-God movie theater. Finally, I got so tired of him giving me ridiculous puppy eyes, I just agreed and he promised to pick me up just as soon as he made his quick nightly rounds in the Suicide Slums to verify that everything is quiet in the city.

"Shouldn't take long," he had said as he kissed my nose on his way out the door. "We'll make the ten-twenty show. Worst case scenario, we head downtown and catch one at midnight."

The last time I checked my watch, it was 11:15. I'm not angry with him—far from it. I know that he's out saving lives and that he'd much rather be holding my hand and stealing popcorn from beneath my fingers—but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't actually been kind of looking forward to doing something semi-normal with him for once. The pitfalls of dating a superhero.

I sigh and curl into a ball on the bed. I don't mean to fall asleep, but I'm assuming that's what happened when I feel Peeta's lips ghost over mine just before the bed beside me sinks under his weight.

"Shit," I mutter sleepily. "I fell asleep."

"S'okay," he whispers against my skin. "I'm sorry it took me so long to get back."

His fingers tug at the hem of my camisole and slide along my hip bones, anchoring me. This is new. When Peeta's patrols take a long time he usually slides into bed and pulls me as close to him as he can manage, as if he's protecting me from whatever he's seen that night. There's purpose behind his hands tonight and his lips work their way down my exposed neck.

I sigh and start to relax back into him when he pulls away from me and slides the strap of my top down. "You… You have a tattoo."

"Yeah, stupid college decision." My cheeks color furiously and I flip onto my back to hide it from his view. As wonderful for my career my friendship with Gale Hawthorne has been, he's also been known to get me into some serious trouble. Case in point: the fucking ink on my right shoulder blade, which was the result of me being far too stubborn for my own good and him knowing exactly how to push my buttons.

Peeta sits up and watches me carefully. "What's it feel like? When you get one, I mean."

I shrug. "It kind of stings more than anything I guess. You know when you get a burn?"

He shakes his head. Oh, right. Of course he doesn't know. I chew my lip contemplatively. How do you describe pain to someone who's never experienced it?

"Do you…" I hesitate because there's still so much about Peeta that I have yet to learn. "Do your feet ever fall asleep? Or your arm, like when you lay on it at night?" He nods slowly, so I continue. "The pin-prick feeling? It's like that only magnified by about a thousand."

He nods slowly, turning my words over in his head, and brushes my hair out of the way. "Can I see it?"

"Sure." I sit up, nestling myself between his knees before pulling my loose hair over my shoulder to fully expose the skin.

He runs his thumb over the tiny tattoo. "What is it?"

"Well." I bite my thumbnail nervously. "It's a lark."

He snorts. "Ironic."

"It was my dad's nickname when he was growing up. Because he sang so well that all the birds stopped to listen, thinking he was one of them."

I feel his lips brush the skin lightly and his hands reach around my ribs to rest on my stomach. "You're beautiful," he murmurs between kisses. "Just when I think I've got everything about you figured out, I find something new."

"I'm sorry…" I breathe, already lost in the heat building in my gut.

"Don't be." Peeta slides his hand inside my jeans. "It just makes me want you that much more."

I lean back into him and begin to suckle the tender skin just under his earlobe. "Please…" I whisper.

Long fingers dip below the waistband of my panties and he barely has to touch me to find the answer to his unasked question. "Shit," he hisses. "You're already so wet."

I take his earlobe between my teeth and nip lightly, expecting his digits to take up the slow, torturous circles that have become commonplace over the last week. Instead he grabs my chin lightly and claims my mouth. Our tongues dance for a moment, writhing together as I feel my jeans rip away from my hips.

"Sorry," he whispers, but the twinkle of his blue eyes is enough to convince me that he isn't entirely contrite as he flips me onto my back and makes short work of my camisole and lingerie, leaving me completely bare to him, save for the pair of Chucks on my feet.

I respond by tugging his polo shirt from his chest. "Shut up and kiss me." He obliges, palming my left breast in his hand as he rocks his hips against my core. His hand leaves and I'm immediately saddened at its absence, but it's all worth it as he frees his length from the khaki trousers and sheaths himself inside me in one fluid motion.

I grasp at his shoulder and sigh as he begins to move. "God, Katniss… I want you so bad…"

"You have me," I moan in response, digging the heels of my shoes into his thighs to spur him on, faster and harder.

Peeta shakes his head. "I want all of you. I want every freckle, every mole, every tattoo, every scar… I want them all to myself for the rest of our lives."

"Always…" I hiss as he grabs my hand and guides it to the bundle of nerves just above where we connect. His first two fingers cover mine and he leads a rhythmic assault on the sensitive nub. "Always, you have me. All of me."

"_Fuck, _Katniss." He moves quickly, withdrawing almost completely before plunging back until our hips are flush. Our fingers move together in a flurry and every nerve in my body seems to be raw and exposed. It won't be long now.

"Peeta…" It takes my last bit of energy to intentionally squeeze my walls around him but it's worth it. I fall apart underneath him, moaning and gasping and begging him to join me in the sheer bliss. He kisses me hard and pumps one, two, three more times before I feel him spill inside me and he wrenches his mouth from mine to groan my name. He lays beside me and I press light kisses on his bicep as we catch our breaths together.

Later, after his breathing has become deep and even, his arms wrap protectively around my waist and I snuggle back into him, feeling completely satisfied with our date night, even though it didn't turn out exactly like he'd planned.

Just before I fall asleep, I feel his lips graze the tiny bird on my right shoulder blade and I make a mental note that maybe more tattoos aren't out of my future if they always elicit such a response from Peeta.


End file.
